12 ADDRESS. 



now commenced, with cautious and prudential pleadings on the 

 one hand, and enthusiastic, uncalculating ardour on the other, and 

 in its progress soon opened new markets for our agricultural and 

 manufactured wealth. By these means, where the necessaries of 

 life only were to be obtained, and those of the simplest kind, 

 articles were required which but a short time before were deemed 

 luxuries. 



As the interior was travelling down, the seaboard was travel- 

 ling up 



Everything was quickened by the spirit of progressive advance- 

 ment, and the whole country felt the beneficial effects to the 

 remotest village of our wide spread confederacy. We cannot, 

 even at the risk of appearing fanciful, refrain from quoting an 

 appropriate stanza from the productions of a native poet, which, 

 though poetry, is not fiction, and though warmly coloured by a 

 vivid imagination, is a faithful detail of facts. Speaking of the 

 union of the lakes with the ocean at the opening of the Erie 

 canal : 



" The sire of ocean takes 

 A sylvan maiden to his arms, 



The goddess of the crystal lakes, 

 In all her native charms. 

 She comes attended by a sparkling train, 



The naiads of the west her nuptials grace, 

 She meets the sceptred Father of the main, 

 And in his heaving bosom hides her virgin face." 



The capabilities of every spot were considered and measured 

 by their productive results. No mind or body was idle ; every 

 one laboured to increase his individual means, and thus directly 

 added to the resources of the nation. The bosom of the earth 

 poured forth its abundance in proportion to the extent of com- 

 merce, and the demands of the manufacturing interest. The 

 fables of the ancients became truths to us. They represented 

 the earth to be filled with hidden treasures, which it was the high 



